Monarques suspends production at Beaufor

Monarques Gold Corp. has announced that production activities at the Beaufor Mine in the province of Quebec, Canada, will be temporarily suspended as of 14 December 2018.

The suspension is primarily due to the low grades of the ore mined at Beaufor in recent quarters, combined with the persistent weakness in the price of gold and difficulties recruiting qualified manpower in the region. As a result, the mine's workforce will be cut to around ten employees who will be assigned to care and maintenance of the mine and its facilities.

“This decision was necessary for the future of the corporation,” said Jean-Marc Lacoste, President and CEO of Monarques. “With the persistent weakness in the gold price and lower-than-expected grades, operations at the Beaufor Mine have been challenging in the last two quarters, a situation that had to be corrected at all costs. Over the coming quarters, we will be looking for ways to improve the mining grade while pursuing our exploration activities, which have generated very promising results. Our goal is to restart the Beaufor Mine as soon as we are able to ensure that our operations will be profitable.”

“We will also step up our efforts to develop Monarques' main asset, the Wasamac gold deposit, which, by using the latest technology, has the potential to become a mine. We will soon issue an update on the status of the Wasamac feasibility study, where we are seeing some very encouraging developments. In terms of operations, it is important to underscore that our custom milling operations at the Camflo mill are growing every quarter and are expected to continue contributing positively to our results,” Lacoste added.

The new exploration strategy at the Beaufor Mine will aim to grow the high-grade gold resource over a longer-term horizon, in order to ensure greater operating profitability.

The many factors leading the corporation to continue exploring at Beaufor, which has produced more than 1.1 million oz over its lifetime, include the multiple high-grade results obtained since the end of 2017 and the fact that the mine still has excellent exploration potential along strike and at depth.

Along these lines, the corporation has obtained new results from its 2018 drilling programme. The results are for a total of 3220 metres of drilling in 14 exploration holes. Nine of the holes intersected mineralisation, including hole 18-150-68A, which returned 10.38 g/t Au over 7.65 metres, including 100.50 g/t Au over 0.50 metres in the QF1 vein. The QF veins generated other significant results, including 84.80 g/t Au over 1.65 metres, 59.45 g/t Au over 0.50 metres, 58.30 g/t Au over 0.50 metres, 32.51 g/t Au over 1.2 metres and 26.50 g/t Au over 0.50 metres.